Glenn Castanheira has been given a big new job at city hall. It will be on him to steer a revival of the downtown core. Item has a brief interview about his ideas.
Update: The Gazette also talks to Castanheira.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The city’s choice of Bochra Manaï as its first anti-racism commissioner is a mistake, according to a spokesman for François Legault, specifically because she’s worked against the Loi sur la laïcité (Bill 21). I don’t believe Quebec can force the city to remove her, at least not directly.
JoeNotCharles
Legault complains the anti-racism commissioner is not racist enough. So, sounds good?
steph
How can Montreal separate from this racist province and its racist leaders? Our district character is under threat.
GC
I’d be concerned if the anti-racism commissioner had NOT worked against Bill 21 at some point.
Ayu
Guess his ideal choice is a visible minority who says yes boss, because the people of Quebec are perfect never making mistakes. Or a white person who has some visible minority friends. My boss is like that, and I’ll submit he hires visible minorities, but meeting a random stranger in an airport in the States who spoke french told him he lived in Montreal for ten years and couldn’t get a job in engineering in the 80’s. He was Persian. He told him your not a minority so you have no right to say there is no racism because you don’t face it. My boss changed after that so there is hope as he apologized to me and another visible minority on being ignorant.
-
Kate
As mentioned earlier, the Impact have renamed themselves, to Club de Foot Montréal. The new branding involves a snowflake.
I’m sorry, but as an anglo I will probably always read that as Club Foot Montreal.
MarcG
That logo is a real downgrade.
dwgs
Logo is way too busy.
Josh
I like what they’re trying to do with the logo (the ‘M’ thing, the arrow for the metro and the snowflake), but I agree with someone on Twitter who said it lacks emotion. (Also, it looks like a part of the anatomy we need not mention, plus they’re putting the nickname “snowflakes” right there on the table for opposing fans.)
dwgs
Butthole, you can say it.
Josh
I’ll leave it to you.
Uatu
Just waiting for snarky Toronto sports caster to say:” club de foot Montreal played like they had a clubfoot!”
Ephraim
And their junior league, Club de 6 Pouce Montréal. Or is that the name of the Club’s endowment? 😀
Sean
I dig it.. I like the branding and the name – although I’m surprised “Montreal FC” is not being used.
Ephraim
Well the local podophiles need a new club name.
Kevin
Sean
You must have missed the uproar that Montreal FC was only acceptable in France, not in Quebec
-
Kate
The Montreal fire service has a new chief, a man called Richard Liebmann who, CTV says, is the first anglo since 1933 to hold the job.
Jack
This is actually fantastic news on the diversity front. I am really surprised, and the fact that the Union is led by Chris Ross, another Bloke is something that hasn’t been seen here in 75 years. Liebmann said one of his big jobs will be to address the lack of diversity in the Fire service.
“Just one per cent of Montreal’s 2,400 firefighters belong to visible minorities, and only 1.2 per cent are women,according to the city. That in a metropolis where six residents out of 10 are first- or second-generation immigrants, and a third belong to visible minorities.”
Have at it.
-
Kate
The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal has been given a beautiful old building on Seigneurs in the Sud-Ouest borough to convert into 23 housing units for women and their kids. It’s a brief piece and where the cash will come from for the conversion isn’t gone into.
Update: Nakuset has tweeted to me to specify: “It’s a second stage supportive housing for both single Indigenous women, as well as Indigenous and their children.”
Michael Black
If I’m not confusing things, they got money previously. I remember a story about someone giving money, and at the presentation deciding to give more money. The story happened, but maybe was about Chez Doris.
Having a building may help fundraising, something concrete to aim for.
david249
The building too was promised a while back, or at least proposed. It is (was) owned by the city, I’d like to see more city buildings get off the books with moves like this.
Cadichon
The money comes from municipal and provincial programs.
-
Kate
A stupid mistake made at a Dorval car rental service ended with thousands of litres of gasoline poured off into one of the city’s few remaining watercourses.
Marc
I live within 20m of this stream; it’s an absolute disaster. It has been, for as long as I’ve been living here, contaminated with all kinds of trash, oil etc. due to the upstream industrial area and airport. There have been articles published previously indicating its toxicity and dangers to public health, yet absolutely nothing has been done. An agency was here last week monitoring this particular instance, though I expect it’ll be business as usual for this poor little stream as has been the case for many years…
-
Kate
Even though the health system is hurting, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are still performing cosmetic surgeries.
Supposing someone books in for a serious cosmetic procedure, and it goes badly. They crash and have to be resuscitated, they need more extensive support than a private cosmetic facility can offer, so they have to be taken to a regular hospital. Do they get this for free on the public system, given that they undertook the risk voluntarily and not out of medical need?
Joey
Why wouldn’t they? Would you prefer that the Ministry of Health set a list of risky activities that negate your participation in our universal healthcare system? Can you imagine what that would be like? If you break your leg mountain climbing, should you have to pay for your surgery? After all, you undertook the risk voluntarily.
Kate
I take your point, but booking surgery is a spot where you can really pin down that risk. Maybe the people doing it should also have to pay for insurance in case of a poor outcome. I wince at the idea that a public ER space should be taken for free by someone whose butt lift went badly.
Alison Cummins
I would hope that expenses would be covered by the clinic’s insurance.
I would also hope that nobody’s getting cosmetic procedures that require general anesthesia, for the time being.
[goes off to read article]
Mark Côté
Spoiler: they are.
Alison Cummins
[having read article]
Yup. They are doing general anesthesia.
That said, the article was a little short on stats and detail, being written for maximum scandalous effect.
One person said the clinics are running at full capacity; another said that nurses are less available so they are slowing down.
This discrepancy could possibly be resolved if they are staying open by doing more things that don’t require GA and fewer things that do.
-
Kate
More than a thousand UQÀM professors and lecturers have been given curfew letters by the university, even though most of them aren’t teaching in any format that would keep them outside after 8.
Joey
Two hilarious elements to this:
1. It’s UQAM, which is effectively run by the Government of Quebec (unlike, say, UdeM, which is a private institution, though publicly-funded).
2. This university managed to send this blanket, unnecessary to *all* Faculty but only *some* adjuncts/lecturers. Even when doing bullshit pandemic-skirting nonsense, they found a way to sneer at non-tenure-track academics.
Bill Binns
Again, blame the politicians. When rules are written with loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, don’t be surprised when they get used.
UQAM, *could* have sorted through all their employees, decided which ones needed to be out after curfew, handled all the inevitable rabble rousing over whom they chose or could take 5 seconds to attach a form to an email and press [send all].
Did anyone see that piece on CTV interviewing florists who have no idea why they have been deemed cessential”? One said she thinks Legault “has a florist close to him”. Another said she was ashamed to be open when other neighboring businesses had been forced to close.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-florists-say-they-don-t-fully-understand-why-they-are-essential-1.5263336david46
Florists makes sense: we’re talking about massive stock losses and potential irremediable destruction to both livelihoods and supply chains.
Kate
I figured they were expecting a rush on wreaths for all the funerals.
-
Kate
We’ll be getting around 15 cm of snow on or by the weekend.
-
Kate
Michel Gravel, who took some wonderful photos for La Presse in his time, has died at 84. Good slideshow.
GC
Definitely some good shots in there.
Kate
Gravel was equally adept at news shots and at portraits, which is impressive.
Michael Black 14:56 on 2021-01-14 Permalink
It’s not city hall. He’s been hired by the downtown merchant’s group. Interaction with city hall, but business driven.
Kate 16:47 on 2021-01-14 Permalink
Thank you, Michael Black.